1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for loading compartmented bulk carrier vehicles, such as railway grain tank cars.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In the loading of grain from an elevator to a railroad car, the vehicle is normally parked in a loading shed or an open siding and positioned beneath or adjacent to an overhead grain storage bin from which the grain is delivered to the box of the vehicle by means of a spout or chute of various well-known designs and familiar to those skilled in the art. In the past, much grain was loaded into box cars and various throwing devices were developed for loading through a side opening in the box car, such as that shown in Sinden, Canadian Pat. No. 457,732 issued June 28, 1949. For the loading of open-topped vehicles, a delivery spout arrangement such as that shown in Wenschlag, Canadian Pat. No. 702,863, issued Feb. 2, 1965, has been used.
It has also been known to use horizontal auger arrangements for the delivery of loose particulate material such as grain and one such auger arrangement is described in Thiele, U.S. Pat. No. 3,074,534, issued Jan. 22, 1963. The purpose of the Thiele device was to deliver grain to a plurality of spaced discharge points and it included special closure devices for selectively closing off one or more of the discharge openings.
Recently, there have been developed special railway tank cars for grain and each of these cars has a series of adjacent compartments with each compartment having an inlet hatch in the top of the tank car and a discharge opening in the bottom. While these specially designed tank cars have proven to be excellent for the transportation of grain and are very convenient in terms of their handling at unloading terminals, there have been difficulties encountered in the loading of these tank cars at local grain elevators.
Thus, when a single delivery spout is used, such as that shown in Canadian Pat. No. 702,863, it has necessitated constant watching by an operator so that as each compartment is filled, the flow is shut off and the spout is then moved to a second hatch in the tank car, either by moving the spout or the tank car, for the filling of the next compartment. This has resulted in considerable wasting of time and labour in the loading of these tank cars at local elevators.
With the multiple hatch openings in these tank cars, it would seem to be an obvious answer to make use of a distributing apparatus such as is described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,074,534 and this does solve the problem to a certain extent, but it does not overcome the problem of requiring constant monitoring by an operator to assure that the compartments are all equally filled and at the same time avoiding overflowing of compartments and spilling of grain.
Electrically operated shut-off systems connected with level indicators could certainly be developed which would cut off flow into each compartment as it is filled, but such systems become expensive particularly for small local elevators and are subject to breakdown and expensive expert maintenance.
It is, therefore, the object of the present invention to provide a very simple and inexpensive system for filling all compartments of a tank car without the necessity of continuous monitoring by an operator.